Earthy, sexy, and vivacious, the life of beloved country singer, Patsy Cline, who soared from obscurity to international fame to tragic death in just thirty short years, is explored in colorful and poignant detail. An innovator?and even a hell-raiser?Cline broke all the boys' club barriers of Nashville's music business in the 1950s and brought a new Nashville sound to the nation with her pop hits and torch ballads like ?Walking After Midnight," ?I Fall to Pieces? and "Crazy." She is the subject of a major Hollywood movie and countless articles, and her albums are still selling 45 years after her death. Ellis Nassour was the very first to write about Cline and did so with the cooperation of the stars who knew and loved her?including Jimmy Dean, Jan Howard, Brenda Lee, Loretta Lynn, Roger Miller, Dottie West, and Faron Young. He was the only writer to interview Cline's mother and husbands. This updated edition features not only a complete discography and a host of never-before-published photographs, but includes an afterword that details controversial claims about her birth, the battle between Cline's siblings for her possessions, the amazing influence Cline had on a new generation of singers and, in Cline's own words from letters to a devoted friend, her excitement as her career soared to new heights and her marriage descended to new depths.

Lucy Hatch's boyfriend shocks her when he receives a surprise visit from his daughter, Denny, whose existence he had kept hidden, as they all embark on a life full of new experiences, revelations, and opportunities.

The story, outrageous but true, of John Hall, a Harley-riding hell raiser who founded the Pagans, a club the FBI called "the most violent criminal organization in America."

Country music boasts a long tradition of rich, contradictory gender dynamics, creating a world where Kitty Wells could play the demure housewife and the honky-tonk angel simultaneously, Dolly Parton could move from traditionalist "girl singer" to outspoken trans rights advocate, and current radio playlists can alternate between the reckless masculinity of bro-country and the adolescent girlishness of Taylor Swift. In this follow-up volume to A Boy Named Sue, some of the leading authors in the field of country music studies reexamine the place of gender in country music, considering the ways country artists and listeners have negotiated gender and sexuality through their music and how gender has shaped the way that music is made and heard. In addition to shedding new light on such legends as Wells, Parton, Loretta Lynn, and Charley Pride, it traces more recent shifts in gender politics through the performances of such contemporary luminaries as Swift, Gretchen Wilson, and Blake Shelton. The book also explores the intersections of gender, race, class, and nationality in a host of less expected contexts, including the prisons of WWII-era Texas, where the members of the Goree All-Girl String Band became the unlikeliest of radio stars; the studios and offices of Plantation Records, where Jeannie C. Riley and Linda Martell challenged the social hierarchies of a changing South in the 1960s; and the burgeoning cities of present-day Brazil, where "college country" has become one way of negotiating masculinity in an age of economic and social instability.

One of the most beloved country music stars of all time gives us the first collection of her lyrics and, in her own words, tells the stories that inspired her most popular songs, such as "Coal Miner's Daughter," "Don't Come Home A' Drinkin'," and, of course, "I'm a Honky Tonk Girl." Loretta Lynn's rags-to-riches story--from her hardscrabble childhood in Butcher Holler, Kentucky, through her marriage to Oliver "Doolittle" Lynn when she was thirteen, to her dramatic rise to the top of the charts--has resonated with countless fans throughout her more than fifty-year career. Now, the anecdotes she shares here give us deeper insight into her life, her collaborations, her influences, and how she pushed the boundaries of country music by discussing issues important to working-class women, even when they were considered taboo. Readers will also get a rare look at the singer's handwritten lyrics and at personal photographs from her childhood, of her family, and of her performing life. Honky Tonk Girl: A Life in Lyrics is one more way for Lynn's fans--those who already love her and those who soon will--to know the heart and mind of this remarkable woman.

Book 2 of the Honky Tonk series From New York Times and USA Today-bestselling author Carolyn Brown comes a contemporary Western romance inspired by the hit country music song, featuring the romantic adventures of the feisty new owner of the Honky Tonk beer joint and the hot, hard-headed cowboy who is out to steal her heart. Cathy O'Dell never felt at home until she moved into the tiny apartment at the back of the Honky Tonk beer joint. Now she figures she's here to stay, loving every minute of the rowdy crowd, down-home juke box music, and constant pool tournaments— until in walks a ruggedly handsome oil man who tempts her to trade in the happiness she's found at the Honky Tonk for a life on the road with him. Gorgeous and rich, Travis Henry travels the country unearthing oil wells and then moving on. Then the beautiful blue-eyed new owner of the Honky Tonk beer joint becomes his best friend and so much more. Sparks fly so bad they're likely to set fire to the beer joint, if the two don't go up in flames themselves first —but when his job is done in Texas, how is he ever going to hit the road without her? Honky Tonk Series: I Love This Bar (Book 1) Hell, Yeah (Book 2) My Give a Damn's Busted (Book 3) Honky Tonk Christmas (Book 4) Praise for Hell, Yeah: "A rowdy Texas ride for the romantic in all of us." —Best Romance Stories "Hell, Yeah is sure to make you put on your best dancing cowboy boots and take your sweetie for a swing on the dance floor." —The Romance Dish "City and country gals alike will enjoy this fun, sassy and fast-paced romance... Brown does an amazing job." —RT Book Reviews "Hell, Yeah is a fast, fun read that will make you want to listen to country music, drink beer from a mason jar, and find a good-lookin' cowboy to dance with on a hot summer night." —The Book Girl

Discover the "important and inspiring" and never-before-told complete story of the remarkable relationship between country music icons Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn (Miranda Lambert). Loretta Lynn and the late Patsy Cline are legends—country icons and sisters of the heart. For the first time ever Loretta tells their story: a celebration of their music and their relationship up until Patsy's tragic and untimely death. Full of laughter and tears, this eye-opening, heartwarming memoir paints a picture of two stubborn, spirited country gals who'd be damned if they'd let men or convention tell them how to be. Set in the heady streets of the 1960s South, this nostalgia ride shows how Nashville blossomed into the city of music it is today. Tender and fierce, Me & Patsy Kickin' Up Dust is an up-close-and-personal portrait of a friendship that defined a generation and changed country music indelibly—and a meditation on love, loss and legacy.

From one of America's most successful and beloved country music artists, Rascal Flatts's Jay DeMarcus, Shotgun Angels reveals the untold stories of his journey and will rally your own courage to find hope where you least expect it. From his humble beginnings in Ohio, to the spark of early fame in Nashville, to a fair share of surprises and setbacks, Jay has learned firsthand that the blessing only comes through the broken road. Shotgun Angels details his path to celebrated heights, as well as the hope instilled in him at a young age that started it all--a hope that sustained him when it looked like his music career was over, and continues to fuel him today. With no shortage of humor, heart, and off-the-cuff candor, Jay gives readers a backstage pass to the story behind the music and the musician. You'll follow his intensely personal journey through big breaks and broken dreams, desperate dashboard prayers, and limelight glories. Along the way, you'll find the same constant source of strength that he has--hope that is powerful enough to hold you up through whatever trials come your way.

Jared Walker is, unbeknownst to him, the natural son of notorious Ben Hackett. Forced into killing Hackett, Jared heads west, where, discovering his true identity, he is compelled by circumstance to live by the gun. Will Jared and honky-tonk angel, Betsy, find redemption through their love? The America of the 1880s was a nation of turbulent paradox. Streetcars ran where Iroquois had hunted. Glidden-wire fenced off grass that had been free. On the keyboard of a St. Louis brothel, Scott Joplin picked out the early chords of Ragtime, while the once-proud Plains Indians hunkered, sullen, on sparse reservations. Yet, in the territories to the west, wild Apache raided still. Cattle grazed on shrinking open range. In the trail and river towns, the six-gun lawman’s work remained unfinished. Memories of civil-war festered in men’s hearts and minds, and its violent aftermath lingered on. The frontier closing, land grew scarce, and blood was spilled on such free grass as remained. Jared Hackett is aimed to recreate the spirit of those wild days.

A “sympathetic and exceptionally well-written account” (USA Today), Ray Connolly’s biography of the King soars with “spontaneity and electricity” (Preston Lauterbach). Elvis Presley is a giant figure in American popular culture, a man whose talent and fame were matched only by his later excesses and tragic end. A godlike entity in the history of rock and roll, this twentieth-century icon with a dazzling voice blended gospel and traditionally black rhythm and blues with country to create a completely new kind of music and new way of expressing male sexuality, which simply blew the doors off a staid and repressed 1950s America. In Being Elvis veteran rock journalist Ray Connolly takes a fresh look at the career of the world’s most loved singer, placing him, forty years after his death, not exhaustively in the garish neon lights of Las Vegas but back in his mid-twentieth-century, distinctly southern world. For new and seasoned fans alike, Connolly, who interviewed Elvis in 1969, re-creates a man who sprang from poverty in Tupelo, Mississippi, to unprecedented overnight fame, eclipsing Frank Sinatra and then inspiring the Beatles along the way. Juxtaposing the music, the songs, and the incendiary live concerts with a personal life that would later careen wildly out of control, Connolly demonstrates that Elvis’s amphetamine use began as early as his touring days of hysteria in the late 1950s, and that the financial needs that drove him in the beginning would return to plague him at the very end. With a narrative informed by interviews over many years with John Lennon, Bob Dylan, B. B. King, Sam Phillips, and Roy Orbison, among many others, Connolly creates one of the most nuanced and mature portraits of this cultural phenomenon to date. What distinguishes Being Elvis beyond the narrative itself is Connolly’s more subtle examinations of white poverty, class aspirations, and the prison that is extreme fame. As we reach the end of this poignant account, Elvis’s death at forty-two takes on the hue of a profoundly American tragedy. The creator of an American sound that resonates today, Elvis remains frozen in time, an enduring American icon who could “seamlessly soar into a falsetto of pleading and yearning” and capture an inner emotion, perhaps of eternal yearning, to which all of us can still relate. Intimate and unsparing, Being Elvis explores the extravagance and irrationality inherent in the Elvis mythology, ultimately offering a thoughtful celebration of an immortal life.